They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. It is too easy to forget, or overlook the fact that those windows are also built-in lenses, 3D camera and extensive hard-drive that stores and catalogues almost every image we experience.
This month I was reminded of my growing dependence on digital technology as I lost my Cannon G11 camera. The G11 is a wonderful piece of equipment, and I have used it every day for over a year. The best/worst/most poetic point of this digital departure was that the camera had more than 200 photographs on its memory card.
I am now traveling back in time. I have dusted off my old Yashica minitec 35 mm camera, and if I am honest, I am very happy about it.
I love all things digital, however, the photograph is a special thing, an art form, the camera is a fixer of moments in time. Special moments, posed, and caught in a flash of blinding personal nostalgia. These days, however, that ‘special moment’ is overruled by an immediate recognition of what looks ‘good’, and “oh no, I hate that photo, take it again”, a luxury we have quickly grown accustomed to. Added to by immediate uploads, cropping, colour adjustment, artsy filters and social network tagging. The result: a small, low-resolution, prescribed and designed version of events.
Until I can afford a new camera, I am forcing myself to celebrate shooting from the hip, closing the viewfinder and winding on a real-life piece of celluloid film. Forgetting about the image until I can develop the roll and rediscover those forgotten moments, complete with imperfections, red eyes, and accidental blurry snap shots.
This new found forced appreciation for the old-skool reminds me of other friendly, almost forgotten photo formulas.
I love the photo booth and seem to always have a few extra coins and 10 minutes to spare getting passport photos that will never be used in a passport, rather ending up as a book mark or mementos pinned to my wall. And of course there is the Polaroid. Where once an essential object and tool of any creative soul, the Polaroid is now a relic of the past, at best a very expensive luxury, at worst a topic of conversation about how things have changed. The Polaroid has become a symbol of the past, a designer, retro aesthetic, and more importantly now Polaroid has become an app to add character and visual noise to your camera phone photos.
The times are changing and with them the equipment we use, and with that the approach and attitudes we have towards our environments and situations. We are becoming more and more impatient. We are a disposable generation who need things NOW. I feel passionate about how quickly we have lost sight of the process by which things happen. If we are not careful we will become completely lost in a world of things that happen without much thought or skill.
Our experiences are sacred, and the records of them are sacred too. We must maintain a grip on the handmade, the things that take time, the human touch. We must celebrate the process of making things happen. Viva L’analogue.
by DAVID SHILLINGLAW
